The Balance
by Moranar
Summary: Who would have suspected that the meeting of an introverted Ravenclaw and a manipulative Slytherin would change the Balance so adeptly? BZLL
1. Milk Chocolate

**A.N.:** This idea came to me a little while ago and I truly hope you don't hate it. This fic will take three parts to complete. I have all three charted out. I intend to finish this fic by the middle of next week at the absolute latest. Ideally, it will be finished by Friday night. This way, the characters will not be out of character once the new book has been released. I also send huge thanks Mags' way for her encouragement.

**Disclaimer:** Copyright J.K. Rowling: All characters, unless otherwise indicated, are not under my financial jurisdiction. The following story has been created and developed by me. I therefore claim the idea as my own. If anything should resemble currently existing events, it is merely coincidence.

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**Chapter One**

Milk Chocolate

I like chocolate. I like the slightly bitter cocoa that makes up dark chocolate. I also like the sweet caress of white chocolate. What I truly adore is the mixture of these two: milk chocolate. It is the perfect blend of darkness and light. Most of all, it is the perfect balance of the dark and the light that makes up all that is good in this world.

Balance is an important thing. It's also what intrigues me about chocolate. It is a rare thing to find an accurate balance of elements. Chocolatiers might very well be the people who control the weaves of the Tapestry of Time. There is always something that tips the balance one way or other and something else must tip to set it right. Chocolatiers are the only people born knowing how to balance. It is their art.

Some people believe the tipped scales are brought back in a steady equilibrium by karma. They're not far from being right or wrong. People, not chance, are often those who steady this disruption. I call it retribution.

The one who is wronged is naturally the most likely candidate to deliver this retribution. It cannot be delivered in hotheaded anger, nor can it be delivered with a shockingly cruel blow above and beyond the severity of the original misconduct.

If you steal my belongings, the hands that hid them will feel prickles of pain. If you steal my wand and curse me, your wand will fail. If you lay an unwanted finger on me, I will reach out to you when you are most vulnerable. When your soul is in repose, I will torment the shell that carries it. Pulsing pain will seep in, beginning at the underside of every finger- and toenail, to pool within your gut, before traveling downwards to torment you further. The sexual frustration and wants of a teenager will always be inconceivably high and angry. That is the target. When you groan and reach out in your sleep, no one will be there to embrace you. When your hips thrust to welcome the invasion of the opposite sex, you will be empty. When you want someone to tighten around you or spill within you, there will be nothing. Absolutely nothing. And, then, when I hear your sobs in the night, I will have exacted the just amount of retribution.

Retribution is the art of taking a measured amount to keep the balance.

While every chocolatier knows not to allow too much dark chocolate into the mix, lest it ruin the foreseen result, they also know not to allow too much white chocolate.

I must take but I must also give where others do not.

As I said, teenagers are sexually frustrated. It is not simply a physical hunger that society frowns upon. Sex is a spiritual gathering. It strengthens the spirit within you, as well as the spirits belonging to those who surround you.

This is a school. The number of spirits who go hungry is ridiculous. Society teaches its youngsters to respect their bodies. There is no wrong in that. It is wrong if a girl's spirit cries out for the touch of her love at the same moments she denies him. A girl clawing at some boy's back, while he seeks to reach his climax uncaring that she moans in pain not pleasure, is just as bad.

Every Saturday night, at the time when one week becomes the next, I seek to fulfill the spirits' hunger within this stone dwelling place. Every time, I choose a boy who interests me. As I come to him in the night, he will not deny me. Males never can. And so, we fulfill the others needs. I am strengthened spiritually and remember the encounter with pleasure the following day. He, of course, forgets. His body and spirit are satisfied but he will not comprehend this. No male mind I have ever joined with has the power to fulfill its self spiritually and remember the incident. That is another reason the spirit in this school lacks.

I always thought school spirit was an odd term.

Give and take. This is my life. I take retribution and give spiritual completion.

I don't mind. I don't think I'm sadistic. Yet, I can't help but smile at their moans in the night. I am no nymphomaniac, though I do enjoy the spiritual and physical unions I undergo weekly.

This charge I have laid upon myself, in the same manner my mother laid it upon herself, as did her mother before her. It is a charge that has been passed from mother to daughter for centuries within my mother's family. Others have abandoned this calling believing it would only sully their lines to do this service for others.

We know differently. We also know that our exploits will lead us to the one that offers us completion. My mother found that in my father. He could complete her in a manner no one else could. He also remembered what had happened the following day. That is a rarity.

It is also the sign of a soul mate. Our task becomes easier when we find that mate.

I rather obviously haven't found one. Much of the negativity that surrounds the girls of my family fades when that same soul mate is found. It seems to stabilize people's mentality. After all, a man and a woman united is another balance. That is why so much import is put on it. They're like puzzle pieces. It also means that I won't have an interest in their male.

And so, until I find that puzzle piece, I remain Loony Lovegood to all but the meagre few I consider friends.

When I find that puzzle piece, the subtle shift will take place, and I shall be Luna to all.

Until then, I would rather like a piece of milk chocolate.

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_Moranar_


	2. Enamour Me

**A.N.:** I couldn't help it. I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Then I had a series of ideas that I had to sort through to determine the course this chapter would take. I have tonnes of homework but couldn't stop writing tonight. I hope it was worth the wait.

**Disclaimer:** Refer to previous chapter.

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**Chapter Two**

Enamour Me

Red blood, still warm and bubbling, coursed through my fingers as I looked on from a distance horrified. I sensed the trickle of time while the droplets fell to the stone floor. Sensation spread throughout my body with the incredible sense of loss. It crashed home so suddenly with my release from the Imperius curse.

The Dark Lord believed the hate and self-loathing could only emerge in crystallized perfection with the release of my mind. He was right. Yet, he would never be able to harness it as I know he wished.

I had killed him. I had killed my father. The Dark Lord had forced my hand. The hand was still mine. It would always be mine. No matter whether it was lost or wrenched from me, the mind that controlled it was mine. The mind that controlled mine was not.

The truth is irrelevant. I should have been strong enough to resist the pull of his mind. I should have been able to harness my own impulses and the strength in my body. I should have been able to harness it and draw my power away from such a use.

The look on his face.

His enemies had been closing in. The Dark Lord had demanded his blood. My father had never been able to bow to this Lord. He had fought him tooth and nail. I had been unable to. The last person he still looked upon with trust had been used to cause his demise. Curse or no, I betrayed him.

He was my family. I had no siblings. I had no mother. She pledged herself to the Dark Lord from want of a child and killed herself shortly after giving birth to me. She realized her error and sacrificed her life to guard me from him. She couldn't guard my mind. She was much too far away to ever do that.

When the Dark Lord rose and came for me, my father refused. I had loved my father. I may be a Slytherin, but I know love. We're not as cold as most would ask you to believe. I have a greater capacity for love then most I've ever met. I also have a greater capacity for hate.

I've always believed hate stems from love and love from hate. The two opposite ends of the spectrum come together inevitably. I knew love and I knew hate before this moment. I love my father. I hate my father. I killed my father.

It was not the first death stemming from my hands.

I was nine. She was twenty-nine. Fanny was my nanny. My father couldn't always care for me. She did that. I loved her and she betrayed me. I hated her and she consoled me. She raped me of my innocence and gave me my power. She raped me physically. I raped her mentally. She took my body. I took her mind. I drove her to insanity and then slowly watched her die. I drew her lifeblood out. I let her bleed to death from the most sensuous of points. Her lips and her vagina were the source of her pain. When she neared the brink of death, I watched her. When her mind was wrenched away, I was there waiting. She took me. I took her.

I loved. I hated. I delivered her just reward.

The Dark Lord seduced me and took my mind. I fell in love with his power. Now I hate every fibre of his being and essence of his spirit. I will have my vengeance.

People liken the Dark Lord to a serpent. I call him a spider. Spiders sit and watch you. They spin their intricate webs and trap you in them. Yet, they can be beaten. I can crush them. I can and will draw away his prey then wrap him in his own web and steal his life's essence. I will be stronger than him. He has age and cruelty. I have the resilience of youth and the capacity to learn. I can learn anything I choose. I choose to learn how to prey upon my enemies.

I walk through the halls of Hogwarts and no one would suspect the thoughts taking place behind my green eyes. No one would suspect the quiet dark boy of seventeen to harbour such murderous intentions. I put nothing past anyone. These children give people too much credit. That's their fault. I will never be at fault in such a manner again.

I leave the corridors behind for the Great Hall and Slytherin table. I acknowledge my surroundings and the unsettling gaze of a Ravenclaw girl. Her wide eyes intrigue me. I am not the sort to walk in the shadows, yet I can use those shadows to my advantage. I will take any advantage.

I am Blaise Zabini.

I am enamoured by blood and wide eyes.

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_Moranar_


End file.
